I have many Indian friends from grad school and knowing them does make me quite bullish on India's future. However, from an investment standpoint, the low priority given to punctuality would give me pause, as would the extremely meddlesome government. Democracy and free markets are very different things.
Same setup, but I wonder: how much of the bullishness is bc the Indians you met were among the hungriest and most accomplished, and set loose in the American ecosystem, which is still (relatively speaking, in most ways) highly functional?
I find it personally difficult to calibrate things like this. The US being a magnet for people like this used to be such a crucial advantage. We're well into fucking that up, of course.
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Of course, that's right. An earlier draft of my comment had the phrase "to whatever extent they're representative" in it.
However, I think crude inferences can be made from comparisons between the students from different cultures. We're all highly selected in that environment, but there are definitely differences that jump out and it seems reasonable to attribute those to the home cultures.
Something that helps with that for me is knowing people from different class backgrounds in India and China, specifically, so I can partially adjust for that variable.
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458 sats \ 1 reply \ @TomK OP 6 Feb
yes, that's right. but in my opinion, as an outsider, India is taking a good path. the integration into various spheres of political and economic power in particular should keep this country on track in the long term
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I'm more than willing to bet on India's continued success, but I think there will be times when pathologically punctual free market westerners like us look on India's economic performance with confusion and frustration.
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